The Cost of Being a Video Game Enthusiast

Watch and weep.


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Those Annoying Visa Ads

Actually, you may think of them as 'those charming Visa ads', but they annoy me to distraction. You know the spots - there's a shopping mall food court, or a sandwich store, or a zoo, or a toy store, and everything is going like clockwork in a Busby Berkleyan frenzy. There is always a top down shot of the whole kaleidescopic vista. The thing that makes this efficiency possible is the fact that everyone is using their Visa check cards.

But then, of course, some idiot pulls out cash and ruins everything. The whole beautiful clockwork thing grinds to a alt and everyone passively agresssively regards the offender until they either leave or remember that they too have a Visa check card.

Why do I hate these ads so much? It's because, although most ads are full of shit, these ads are full of shit in a profoundly unamerican way.

Allow me to explain.

First, the premise is patent nonsense. Cash is often just as quick as a check card. Or at least, its as quick as a check card machine manned by someone being paid minimum wage.

Second, businesses love cash. Especially restaurants. Want to know why? Most restaurants skim a whole bunch of untraceable cash (typically 10%) off the top of each days take and squirrel it away somewhere before accounting begins. Thats just basic restaurant practice. Add to that the fact that check card and credit card transactions cost businesses money, and the whole 'we hate cash' thing kind of falls apart.

But third, and most important, who wants to just be a cog in a machine? I remember a friend who lived in Japan telling me about a tv commercial for garbage bags that ran over there. Everyone was taking out their black garbage bags and when some poor sap brought out his white garbage bag, everyone pointed at him and laughed. That was the whole commercial. At the time, I thought that was fascinating, and also something that wouldn't fit in the United States, because of this countries huge cultural mythos of Rugged Individualism. In this country, we want to be the person who stands out. We want to be the car that stays on the track while all others fall in the holes. We want to be the hammer and not the nail. We want to be the clever woman who is eating Lean Cuisine and not her poor colleagues eating tasteless mush.
And thats where the Visa commercial is the most wrong. Like I said, it's just plain unamerican.

When I first moved to this country from New Zealand, during the waning days of the Clinton administration, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of political reportage in the mainstream media. The Lewinsky scandal was in full swing and although there were some reporters who got that story terribly wrong (why Sam Donaldson continues to have a job after publicly guaranteeing Clintons resignation in early 1998 is a mystery) there were also plenty who got it right – Tom Brokaw and Ted Koppell chief among them. I suppose it is no accident that both of these men are no longer part of the mainstream media, at least in any meaningful way.

This isn’t going to be a rant about the Bush administration and it’s numerous sins against the Republic. I mean, there’s lots of time for more of that before January 2009. This is a rant about the state of American journalism and how it has devolved since September 2001.

Here are some things I saw on tv last week:

A story about Al Gores Nobel Prize win that focused on the political implications for the US presidential race and the fact that a British Judge found ‘errors’ in the film. (In reality, the British judge ruled in favor of the film and used the word “errors” in sarcastic quotation marks in his ruling – a fact that only one major newspaper has since reported).

A story about S-Chip that attempted to blame the Democrats for the right wing smear campaign against a 12-year old.

A puff piece on Clarence Thomas on “60 Minutes” in which he ripped unabated on Anita Hill – the producer later admitted they hadn’t even asked Hill for a response.

Another piece on 60 minutes – this time about Blackwater USA – that fawningly interviewed its chairman and did not contain a single interview with any of the company’s critics or even show some of the truly odious incidents which Blackwater's own operatives have uploaded onto YouTube.

What’s going on here? Why has 60 Minutes become so neutered? Why does the nightly news give “both sides” of the global warming “debate” even though one of those sides is patent nonsense?

I think that after the attacks of September 2001 the media went into a defensive crouch. And to be fair, it was sort of OK for them to do that for a little while. The psyche of the nation was damaged and fragile and news organizations wanted to ‘be supportive’ of the government. But somehow that changed into a new baseline instead of a temporary aberration. The Bush cabinet were lionized in gritty photo essays in Vanity Fair and Rumsfeld's sneering dismissive answers to legitimate questions were seen as lovable, like he was Wilford Brimley. Well he was Wilford Brimley, just not the cuddly Wilford Brimley from Cocoon. No, he was the scheming, evil Wilford Brimley from The Firm. But this time there was no Tom Cruise to kick him in the head. (By the way, you should watch The Firm, if only to see Wilford Brinley get kicked in the head)

As the administration revved up their engines for the Iraq war, the media went even further. Now mere lack of critique wasn’t the baseline, it was out and out cheerleading for armed conflict. Everyone knows about Judith Miller's stenographed articles for WMD in the N.Y. Times. But I remember in early 2003 being flabbergasted at an article in Time Magazine talking about the possibility of Saddam allowing inspectors back into the country. The article ended by saying “…and then if the inspectors don’t find any WMD Saddam could conceivably be allowed to stay in power, which is absolutely unacceptable” (Italics mine). Now, first of all, this wasn’t an Op-Ed piece. This was a regular Time article. And they felt the need to editorialize that under no circumstances should Saddam be allowed in power. I remember re-reading that sentence several times and feeling a chill. Because at that point the media had become completely co-opted.

Things have changed a little since then. The biggest sign of this was during Katrina, when even some Fox News correspondents went off script and said some harsh things about the government. But by and large our media have yet to recover. If it wasn't for Bill Moyers, I don't know what I'd do.

The Red Ring of Death isn't neccesarily a bad thing

If you're reading this you probably know I'm something of a geek. Not a total, complete, living in Mom's basement, never been kissed geek, not at all, but you know that I have, lets say, some geek elements. I have my Geek Card, as it were.
I love comic books, and I don't have to call them 'graphic novels' to feel good about myself. I could name all of Superman's relatives if I had to. It's possible that I played Dungeons and Dragons once or twice when I was growing up. With regard to movies, I could tell you seven differences between the Raiders of the Lost Ark that was released in 1981 and the version that was released on DVD three years ago. I can hold my end up in most geeky conversations. However, lets face it, when it comes to my geekdom the jewel in the crown is my love of video games.

This is my hobby, and I'm not frightened to admit it. But don't worry - this isn't goping to be a post about how video games are great and people should just, you know, stop trying to ban them and everything (probably because I think I've already done a few posts on that topic already). No, this is going to be a post about how I'm NOT playing video games right now, and how I kind of like that.

It's not a voluntary condition. I got the Red Ring of Death.

Allow me to explain. The Red Ring of Death is not the aftermath of a tick bite or the unfortunate consequence of a two AM drunken binge at Taco Bell. It's an Xbox 360 hardware failiure. You may have heard about it in the mainstream media, even. There's an overheating problem in some of the 360s and Microsoft have to spend a billion dollars fixing them. I'm currently waiting for a special box to arrive and when it does I shall place my console in it and send it off to Redmond, Washington, where a team of geeks will fix it and ship it back to me. Hopefully before Mass Effct, the new role playing game from Bioware, comes out on November 19th.

So here I am, without a games console, which isn't an altogether bad thing. If it was forever, that might be a bad thing, but its not, its only for a month or so. This opens up other options for whatever time I have left after working my job and spending quality time with my beautiful wife and newborn son.

It gives me a chance to read more, which is good. I love reading and there are several books I've been meaning to catch up on - some of them even lack pictures.

It gives me a chance to watch some more tv - I swear, since Jack was born, I've doubled the amount of late night tv I have ever watched. I've also been watching some of the new tv shows this season - I may well post some of my opinions on these.

It also gives me a chance to write, even to update this blog. Thats gotta be a good thing. I have all kinds of opinions about whats going on in pop culture and politics, and it might be fun to dish some out. We'll see.

But hopefully, by November 19th, I'll be back to playing the games.

Jack's Birthday

Jack’s birthday began for me at 4.48 AM on the 25th of August, 2007. That was when Amy woke me up and said softly, "I think I’m having some contractions."
Neither Amy or I were particularly panicked by this development. We’d been to childbirth classes and had read a few books about it, enough to know that contractions can be false and that often people jump the gun and head to the hospital at the first sign of labor, only to have to leave and go home again. Embarrassing!

Still, it was definitely something to keep track of. I woke up and grabbed a pen and began making a note of the contractions length and frequency in a form in the back of one of our birth handbooks. I was determined to be as helpful as my puny role in this childbirth allowed. If wielding a pencil was my job - then by golly, I would wield said pencil with flair and integrity!
Hmmm. The contractions seemd to be coming fairly frequently….like eight or nine minutes apart. Okay. Something to keep track of. As the pre-dawn progressed, with Amy and I lying on the bed with the lamp on, keeping track with each new contractiuon, it became evident that this may indeed be The Real Deal. The baby was coming.

The baby was coming!!!

As the sun rose, we figured we still had a fair amount of time with which to get some last-minute stuff done. Amy’s dad had said he would like to drive up from Madison and stay for a few days after the birth so we did a little cleaning up around the house. Amy picked up the living room; I gave the bathroom a once over. Amy made sure the guest bedroom was ready for her dad; I drove to the ATM machine and withdrew some cash.

By about 8.30 we called the ‘babyline’, to ask for their advice as to when we should go into the hospital. The babyline, however, was woefully understaffed and said they would get back to us. Good to know! Okay. Neither of us were that concerned, because the hospital was only 10 minutes away, but as the time ticked by and we didn’t hear from anyone, both Amy and I grew a little more anxious. By 9.30 Amy had reported some fluid discharge and the contractions were coming every five minutes. Insistently. Annoyed, I called the babyline back and we finally got someone on the phone, who told us that going to the hospital was probably a good idea.
Okay! Lets go!

We had packed 3 bags (one for Amy, one for me, one full of baby stuff) and I had already lugged em out to the car. We were ready to go. We got in the car and drove away. I’d like to say that I had some profound thought at this point, like "when we come back to this house there will be three of us" but really I was nervous about making sure we got to the hospital and that I hit the right turn and parked in the right place. Naturally I was confused and almost missed the turn.
I dropped Amy and the bacs off at the front gate while I parked in the ramp. We met up at the front desk and followed the directions to the sixth floor, where we needed to check in.

The lady at the check-in booth directed us to the labor assessment room, which is a station where they figure out how far along you are. They got Amy on one of those reclining examination chair and put on two belt monitors – one for her and one for the baby. The monitor for Amy kept track of how intense the contractions were (this does not necessarily translate into how much the contractions hurt, she noted) and the one for the baby kept track of his heartrate. After several contractions it was obvious to everyone that Amy was in Labor with a capital L and that she should be admitted. So we made our way across the floor to the birthing unit, a circular suite of rooms surrounding a hub where the nurses and midwifes did their work.
At this point we were very pleased with our gfood fortune because the midwife on duty was Eileen, not our primary midwife, but the only other one we had seen. We had really enjoyed our visit with her and were very happy that she was going to be helping us with the birth.
We made ourselves at home in the birthing suite. Amy was ensconsed on the bed with her dual monitors, and I set up some speakers and the ipod so we could have some nice calming tunes. So far, so good.

Eileen the midwife examined Amy’s cervix and said that she was 100% effaced and 4 cm dilated. To explain: before a mother can begin to push, the cervix has to both thin out as well as widen. It’s a 3 dimensional thing, a cervix. So what this examination showed was that Amy’s cervix had thinned out completely and that she was almost halfway dilated. When you get to 10 cm, it’s push time.
We were very happy by this news. It seemed as if things were moving at a rapid clip, and we imagined that the pushing stage would arrive before the late afternoon.
Several hours passed. During these hours the contractions began to increase in intensity and duration. From my perspective, I became a little concerned because the pain seemed quite severe.

Amy and I had purposefully not submitted a written birth plan. While the concept of the birth plan is fine, to us it seemed, after reading and listening to various birth stories, that labor rarely adheres to a written plan. It seemed to us that it would be more helpful for us to have some basic ideas in place, and to be able to abandon them in case events on the ground changed. With regard to pain management strategies, Amy wanted if possible to avoid narcotics or an epidural. However, god bless her, she wasn’t completely absolutist about this. In this, as in all things, she is a practical person above all else.
Well, thank goodness. Because about 3 o’Clock Amy's water broke cpmpletely and the previously merely uncomfortable contractions became agonising. And lengthy. Now, I can see a person handling brief agony. Or lengthy discomfort. But lengthy agony? Not really a picnic. We would find out later exactly why this was so painful, but all we knew now was that it was very very painful, and that maybe some relief might be in order. Our nurse, Nicole was very helpful with the contractions. Helped Amy with breathing and so forth. Finally she suggested getting some pain relief, and to my relief, Amy agreed. Epidural time.

But it's not like an epidural can be arranged in two or three minutes. No, it takes time to contact the anesthestist, time to get him up to the room, and time to actually tap into the mother's spine. That's right. Spine. I have heard that past a certain point in labor, they will not do this proceedure, because the mother to be needs to be completely still while they insert the tube into her backbone. Amy was being a trooper and was trying very hard to be still, but the human body under great strain will begin to shake, and thats what started to happen with Amy. Her legs were shaking uncontrollably, and that was making the anesthatist a little antsy. The whole proceedure took what seemd like 9000 years to complete though later I reflected it was probably only three or four hundred.

After the epidural kicked in things got a lot less painful, thank goodness. After another cervix check Eileen said that Amy was almost all the way dilated and that before too long she could start to push. Yes! That sounded good to everyone. More time went by and our nurse changed - Nicole was replaced by Shannon. Shannon was equally good. After a little wait the midwife came back and said it was time to start pushing. Excellent.

Amy was nothing if not motivated for the pushing. Her job was to facilitate the birth of a new human organism onto planet earth. My job was to help count. I was psyched!

The first few pushes seemed to be going well, at least to me - Amy was really pushing hard and she wasn't getting all flushed which you are supposed to try and avoid. But - the baby didn't seem to be moving down much. Like at all. And as time went on, it became apparent that something was up. Amy was pushing incredibly hard and her cervix was totally dilated - but no baby movement. Somewhere around this time Roy, Amy's father, arrived at the hospital and was led to a waiting room.

Like a lot of things regarding maternity (see breastfeeding), much of childbirth is a matter of mechanics. You have a mother. You have a child. You have a child inside the mother. You have a birth canal. You have a cervix. You have gravity. The ways these things physically interact determines much of what happens. So we suspected something was up. Our suspicions were proven correct when, after a humoungous push, the baby's heartrate dropped from 155 to 55. Thats a big drop, and it was obvious from the way the midwife and nurses scrambled that there was a problem.

They told Amy to stop pushing and to turn onto her side, and the babys heartrate crept up again. In the time it took for that to happen I considered and rejected many different outcomes and decided to focus only on what was happening now.

The nurses removed the external baby monitor and applied an internal one. Check this out: they take this cable that ends in a spiral wire and reach up nto the mom and screw it into the babys head. I am not kidding. How badass is that? It doesn't go into the babys head much, just enought to give good stats, but sheesh.

A doctor was summoned. She examined Amy and came to a quick conclusion: there was something problematic about the way the bay was positioned and our best option was to have a C-Section. Well, theres really no arguing with that, is there? At this point the mechanism of a major unplanned surgery took over. it wasnt an emergency C-section, but it sure wasn't a planned one and they had to move pretty fast.

A surgical nurse came in and gave me some scrubs and sterile gear to wear. I went to the bathroom to change into it and accidently put my shoe cover on my head. Thank goodness I discovered my mistake before emerging. When I came out they were already wheeling Amy out of the room.

I started to get a little scared.

When I caught up with Amy she was already in the O.R. and they had set up a little tent in front of her face so she couldnt see what they were doing. I settled down by her and squeezed her hand and pretended I wasn't at all worried.

The operation began. The surgeon was a very competent lady who barked out orders in a way that made me think that she knew what she was doing. Because Amy had been laboring, her uterus had expanded somewhat and this made the c-section a little tricky.

There was lots of activity on the other side of the tent. I got the feeling that Amy was losing more blood than they would have liked, which made me more concerned. I tried to just keep looking in Amy's eyes and let her know how much I loved her.

Then the anesthetist tapped me on the shoulder and gestured to my camera. I grabbed it and popped my head up over the tent.

That was when I saw my son's head emerging from his mother's belly. I took a picture, I will not share it. As they pulled him out I felt as if I had just jumped out of an airplane. I have jumped out of an airplane, and for the 4 seconds I fell before my static line opened my shute, all I could feel was total intensity. That was what this was like.

They cleaned out his airway and checked him and handed him to me. There's no real way to recount what that felt like.



Then, after giving him his apgar test (he scored a nine) they took his footprints and showed him to mommy for his first kiss.



Then they hustled me and Jack out of the room while they continued to work on Amy. I was quite overcome at this point. I wanted to be with Jack, but I wanted to be with Amy even more. I caught her eye as they led me out and it was a tough moment for me.
I wouldn't see Amy again until after the ssurgery was completed. And that was how I spent 80 minutes in the nursery just looking at my son in absolute wonder. Check out how alert he was!



Here he was, new to the world, still part amphibian, just calmly regarding his new mind blowing reality and ready to take on all comers. How could you not fall immediately in love with that? That was an utterly peak experience for me. I just looked at him and spoke to him and told him about the world and his Mom and Dad and what life was going to be like. I was so worried about his Mom. When a nurse came up behind me and asked if I was ok, I burst into tears and said "I'm OVERWHELMED!"

As much as I loved being with Jack, I couldn't bear not knowing what was happening to Amy. Finally a nurse told me she was fine and was in post op and would I like to take Jack in to see her?

Well, duh.

I took Jack into the waiting room and gathered up grandpa Roy before we went to see Amy and then, finally, we were together. A new family, safe and sound.







It was one month ago tonight.